Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

anger giving way to the same fear I hadn’t recognized when I started toward her in the semi-darkness of the room. She angled herself toward the wall so she could sit up.

I looked at the man with his hands still raised as he took another step closer and said, “I’m working here and I told you to call the police, so don’t be stupid.” He stopped, lowered his hands. “I knocked a syringe out of her hand. She said it was for the SVC line.”

“The subclavian vein catheter. That’s—”

“Explain it later,” I said. “The needle’s gotta be on the floor. Why don’t you go find it, so police can figure out what’s in it? Please. And put on gloves. She didn’t grab any when she came into the room. Her fingerprints must be all over the barrel.”

He turned to look at a tall, middle-aged woman in a pristine white coat with a stethoscope hanging out of one pocket. A supervising physician, I assumed. She nodded her permission. He went into the room and dialed up the lights. I heard Mona say, “What’s going on? Is that Mr. Rimes out there doing all that hollering?” Then the woman in white stepped into the space the man had vacated and looked straight at me.

“The poor thing’s soaked and bleeding. Can we do something about that?”

“Toss her a towel. I don’t want anybody close if the ‘poor thing’ has another weapon.”

A small white towel made its way to the front of the crowd, and the woman now sitting with her back against the wall put it over her nose just as the man returned with the hypodermic in a blue-gloved hand.

“It’s empty,” he said.

“Perfect for an air embolism,” I said.

29

So, you beating up little girls now?”

Dark hair half-combed and light brown cheeks dotted with stubble, Rafael Piñero sat behind his desk in the homicide squad room, glaring at me in the interview chair across from him. Instead of his customary suit and tie, he wore jeans and a black BPD sweatshirt. It was half-past three, and I had just finished summarizing my investigation. Earlier, I had refused to accompany the responding officers to nearby B District unless a uniformed cop was posted outside Mona’s hospital room. While one officer seemed ready for a testosterone spray-off with me, his more experienced partner asked the resident who had found the syringe how it could be used to commit murder. After hearing the explanation, he turned to me and asked if I knew anyone on the force who could vouch for me. I told him detectives Chalmers and Piñero. A few phone calls later, the younger uni sat in a chair in the hospital corridor while I took a ride down to headquarters, not B District, beside his partner. Handcuffed, the woman rode in back. Now she was waiting in an interrogation room.

“She isn’t a little girl,” I said. “She’s a grown woman who tried to stab me with a needle with God knows what on it.” I took a breath. “Didn’t mean to hit her that hard.”

“A little woman, bro, and you broke her goddamn nose. With a water pitcher.” Piñero let out a low whistle and sat forward, resting his elbows on the desktop and his chin on his hands. “Okay, so you think she was trying to kill this old lady you were guarding. Who is she again?”

“The mother of the woman I was hired to find.”

“The woman who overdosed.”

“The woman forced to overdose.”

“Okay, forced. But you still haven’t figured out why.”

“When we find out who this woman is, maybe then we’ll know why.”

“Takes time. We got no idea what Jane Doe’s real name is. She’s not talking. Hasn’t even lawyered up. We can put her face and prints in the system and wait for hits. But she’s gotta be charged with something for anything we do to matter. So far you got nothing. The cops who answered the call found her bloody on the floor because you put her there.”

“Somebody shot her—the mother, I mean. I was sure they’d try to finish her so I was there.” I smiled at him. “Thanks at least for putting in a good word. I’ll sleep better knowing Mrs. Simpkins has police protection.”

“Hold the fucking phone a minute, okay? I called in a favor and got you brought here instead of B District. To homicide. But nobody died tonight. Your private-eye-who-brought-in-a-cop-killer shit only goes so far, you know? This is probably the last hole-punch for that particular card.”

I figured it was true and said nothing.

Piñero pursed his lips. “So, we got the lady covered for the moment, but I don’t know yet if we can do round-the-clock, especially if that dipshit walks outta here uncharged. That call is above my grade. You will have to convince the brass to spend the money. Good luck with that.” He leaned back, folded his arms across his chest, and surprised himself with a yawn. “Woke me the fuck up. Woke up my girl when we were both wiped out—and don’t even look like you want to ask why. Man, they coulda called Terry. He’s chickless right now and probably snoring out to the sidewalk.”

“Sorry.” I spread my hands in a mea culpa. “I gave the guy both your names.”

“Prick probably turned his phone off ‘cause he had a premonition you would get into some shit tonight.” He drummed his fingers on the desktop. “Why is everything so twisty-turnaround with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“First, that shooting is not my case, and neither was the overdose. Frankly—”

“I know. Survive an overdose or a shooting, your priority drops.”

“Not just that. Maybe there is an upstart gang trying to challenge Lorenzo Quick’s operations—foolish, you ask me. Maybe these two big black dudes did off this teacher and try to kill his girl on Jefferson. Maybe they shot up her folks in the middle of Orange Street. That doesn’t explain why a little white meth mama tries to kill an old black church